KUALA LUMPUR: Ireka Corporation Bhd and GAINS Education Group Sdn Bhd will jointly develop and operate five educational campuses in Malaysia.
The companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the development of the campuses in Terengganu, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Sarawak, and the Klang Valley.
The campuses will cater to both national and international K-12 group programmes.
Ireka has more than 50 years of experience in construction and engineering and property development domestically with participation in renowned projects like several administrative offices in Putrajaya, portions of the North-South Expressway, and various property developments under the iconic i-Zen brand.
GAINS has 22 years of experience in the education sector, having educated more than 75,000 students from 11 countries.
The group comprises private investors MHI Capital Sdn Bhd, founder and executive director Zaliza Alias and Mohd Hafiez Shah.
K-12 is an education industry term for preschool to primary and secondary schooling.
Ireka executive director Simon Chow said the five campuses would be built on land of around three to six acres in the five identified locations.
Construction works are slated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2022 and expected to be completed by 2030.
"With Ireka's excellent track record in construction, engineering, and property development, we can continue to expand our project portfolio to include building quality campuses to meet the growing education needs of Malaysians.
"Once completed, the campuses will be operated by our strategic partner, GAINS. With this strategic partnership, we hope to provide the platform and opportunity to the community we operate in so they are able to benefit from this access to holistic education through GAINS," Chow said.
He said the campuses represented another step in Ireka's transformation journey that would expand its scope of work of building high-end property developments and nation-building infrastructure.
"We view these campuses as long-term-value assets that not only deliver recurring income once they begin operating but ones that can be monetised to Ireka's benefit moving forward," he added.
Zaliza said the MoU signalled the start of a strategic partnership between GAINS and Ireka, as the latter's strengths in construction and development would work well with its expertise in providing both national and international K-12 group programmes.
"GAINS will run and operate the five school campuses which will be Malaysia's model of eco-schools with stellar Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics foundations, while providing an all-encompassing and exemplary values-based education system at each campus.
Zaliza said it had been looking for a strategic partner like Ireka.
She said the five campuses would be able to cater for 10,000 to 15,000 students within the K-12 sphere in Malaysia.
"Currently, GAINS already has a presence in Indonesia, and we will be providing school management services in Qatar next year.
"The latest expansion for this year, GAINS is opening a new branch of Idrissi International School in Educity Iskandar, to attract student populations in southern Malaysia as well as from Singapore and Indonesia.
"In the pipeline, there are plans to introduce our holistic education model to the Middle East and North African countries, which share many cultural similarities with Malaysia," she said.